


barefanged

by girlcrush (sunsmiles)



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boxing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Pre-Relationship, past bullying, please take the tags seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-08 15:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15933383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsmiles/pseuds/girlcrush
Summary: "That's what they all say at the start, you know. That they won't do it with me in mind. Always cracks me up. But I hope you're different. Not just because I think you're pretty hot."Jinsoul attracts trouble wherever she goes. But trouble isn't enough to win over reigning boxing club champ, Yves the black swan.





	barefanged

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ringthealarm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ringthealarm/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY BESTIE / ULT / LIBRA LEGEND DUZI!!! I knew you were lamenting the death of Boxer Beyoncé, and also you were asking for a yvesoul fic, so I thought why not combine them! I hope you enjoy this! I love you most.
> 
> In general... please take the tags seriously. All five of them. They're all important and they are there for a reason.
> 
> Also, a massive thank you to my 97intjz friend Izzy nykteris. Thank you so, so, so much. 
> 
> Lastly, I have a funky [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7zcc6ISRIVvqfh1Gd0MbIL) for this fic, it's mostly based on vibe and sometimes also on lyrics. Take a listen if you want to, and I hope you enjoy!

When Jinsoul walked around the area where her dorm room was located, she made sure she stomped so loud that the brick walls of the district echoed it, so loud that the boys roaming about on the side heard her call. Today, it was a boy with gelled hair that she hadn’t met before, smelling of Axe and a need to prove himself. He looked at her with a lopsided grin. She looked back, really stared into his brown eyes. He cocked his jaw and bumped his elbow to his friends.

“Look at you,” he sneered. “What’s a girl like you doing in a crap place like this?”

“She’s one of those students,” his friend said. “Rich fucks.”

“Is that so?” He walked up toward her with a bent back, eyes not leaving her. “You think you’re better than us, huh. I see it.”

“I didn’t say that,” Jinsoul answered. “You want to see it that way, be my guest.”

He raised his eyebrows, seemingly amused. But she knew he didn’t like the answer. “What’d you say?”

His friend opened his mouth to answer, but Jinsoul cut him short, anger and excitement flaring up inside her like old friends. “I said you’re a son of a bitch.”

“I’d be real careful about what you’re saying.”

“And if I wasn’t?” Jinsoul smiled sweetly.

The boy hesitated for the fraction of a second. It was enough for Jinsoul to throw the first punch, right into his face. He staggered back, eyes wide and hands protectively on his nose.

His friend rose up, fists ready for the fight. “What did you--”

Jinsoul threw another punch to the face. And then another. It was with the fourth punch that the boy with the bleeding nose, and his friend at the back having walked up to them at long last, hit her back.

Not much later the boys found themselves at the ground, whimpering and glaring at Jinsoul, and Jinsoul felt the rush of triumph mix in with the waves of pain.

 

“Another fight?” Yerim said. Her forehead was creased, as it usually happened when she tended to the wounds. As if she was asked to do it. Yerim dabbed the wet pad on a swelling red part above her elbow, and the pain made Jinsoul wince.

“Unnie, why are you like this? It’s like you always pick fights with _them_ and not them with you.” Yerim didn’t look like she was waiting for an answer: with a sigh she dunked the alcohol bottle onto the pad and scanned Jinsoul’s arms with her eyes, another place to dab.

Jinsoul hummed. It sounded more like a groan.

“I honestly can’t stitch anything up, you know that right?” Her uniform was wrinkled around her collar, and near her right boob there was a little orange speck of what must’ve been from lunch. It looked so clean otherwise, so prim. Just like any good high school freshman.

“It’s fine.”

“It really isn’t.” Yerim put a bandaid on what was a little cut on Jinsoul’s cheek. A smile played on her lips. “You look a little like a gangster now.”

Jinsoul made a gun with her fingers and pointed it at Yerim. “The prettiest you’ll meet.”

“That is definitely true.” Yerim laughed. Jinsoul grinned as well, even though pain flared up on her cheek as she did so.

“You should do your homework.”

“Later. Don’t feel like doing it right now.” Yerim pushed the little bottle and the bandaid to the side to sit opposite Jinsoul cross-legged, twin tails and uniform a stark contrast to the lump of clothes that Jinsoul was wearing. Not to mention the bruises. “Unnie! You’re really out there doing more fighting than studying. I can’t believe you! If you really want to fight so much you should just join a boxing club. Just drop your major!”

Yerim was smiling and her tone was light, but her eyes told a story of worry and fear. Fear for Jinsoul, out of all people. It made her stomach twinge in annoyance. To have this… this hobby of hers be a point of worry for Yerim… she couldn’t allow that to happen.

“What?” Yerim asked.

“You’d feel relieved, wouldn’t you?”

Yerim squinted. “Well I don’t want you to fight at all!”

“That’s not going to happen.” Jinsoul tentatively stretched her arms. Pain flared up on three different spots at once.

“Why not?”

“What’d you say before?”

“That I don’t want you to fight.”

“No. The other one.” It was hard to think of anything with her body this exhausted. “Right. That I’m a gangster. That.”

“You--” Yerim sighed and slumped her shoulders. “I give up.”

“You should do that more often.”

“Hey! I would never.” Yerim pushed Jinsoul’s shoulder with fake exasperation. “You really can’t do a normal sport?”

“Nope.”

Yerim sighed again. “At least it’s just boxing.”

At least. “Are you going to do your homework now?”

“You really want me gone, unnie, don’t you?”

“Didn’t say that. I think my bed is pretty good for doing homework.”

“But you have a--” Yerim turned around to where Jinsoul’s desk was, art supplies stacked over one another. She sighed again. “Fine. Let me do it here.”

The rest of the afternoon Jinsoul watched Yerim do her homework on her bed, her tongue protruding slightly whenever she was thinking hard, ponytails swinging next to her head. She herself had an assignment, but she had forgotten what it was. Jinsoul slumped to her bed, her head hitting the pillow. A boxing club… in the movies it always looked like a cool affair, and even more badass when it was a woman that did the boxing. It wouldn’t just be the rush of the fight itself -- it would be the rush of fame, the spotlights, people cheering. People thinking it was a good thing that she fought.

It wasn’t a bad idea.

“Hey!” Yerim said. “Don’t move so much. I’m trying to write.”

Jinsoul moved her legs just to annoy Yerim even more. The more Yerim whined the louder Jinsoul laughed.

 

The assignment had apparently been to create a self-portrait. At the start of the class everyone except Jinsoul pulled out their homework, some larger than others. The boy sitting next to her - Jungkook, she recalled his name as - shared a glance with Jinsoul, and between his eyebags and her bruises, both understood. He flattened his fringe with his hand, ridiculously strong arm muscles a contrast to his cute face. She resisted the urge to scratch the bandaid on her cheekbone. The professor standing in front, a man in his thirties and with a ridiculous goatee, was analyzing one of their course mate’s work, a collage of vegetables roughly formed their face.

She leaned forward to Jungkook and whispered, “Hey”.

His grin was greeting enough. “What have you gotten yourself into this time?” he asked.

It didn’t matter. “You know a good boxing club?”

“Huh?” His smile disappeared first, his eyes widened second. They darted around the room in thought. “You wanna get into that?”

“Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Jinsoul grinned. “Got one part down.”

“You don’t think you wanna--”

“If there is something to say, share it with the whole class,” the professor said loudly, his eyes resolutely on the spot between Jinsoul and Jungkook. Jungkook flinched as if he’d been slapped.

“After class,” Jinsoul whispered. Jungkook nodded mutely, big eyes staring straight ahead at the projection one second, the next hastily taking out his sketchbook to do his homework.

“Jeon Jungkook!” the teacher called out. Jungkook froze right in the middle of drawing whatever he was drawing, turning to Jinsoul with wide eyes. All she did was snicker. He pouted a little and, as he got up, handed her a little slip. She hid it in her fist, waited all the way until Jungkook was at front next to the overhead projector, and then looked at the ripped slip of paper. On a messy handwriting was a location, one Jinsoul recognized as pretty close to the city center. _this is all ik of,_ Jungkook wrote at the end. Under her desk, she looked up the address on the phone, and indeed there was a boxing club close to the city center called _Swan - Boxing Club Exclusively for Women._ According to the pictures, it was a small but sleek-looking place, donned entirely in black even down to the windows with only neon letters spelling the name offering any kind of idea on what the location could be. It was open on afternoons and evenings on all days except Sunday.

Jinsoul read the name of the club again, her eyes transfixed on the last word. Women. A part of her twisted, part muscle memory and part edges of memories surfacing back. Faintly she could hear laughter, loud and mean. Her leg bounced up and down, so strong that her desk started shaking. When she saw the professor glance at him, she quickly turned the paper back and straightened herself up.

“I think that, uh,” Jungkook was saying at the front, obvious that he was winging it, “I see myself as someone who is trying.” The projected “self-portrait” was a little sketch figure with well-defined biceps, a ridiculous caricature.

“It seems like you see yourself as small but strong,” the professor added, eyes back on the sketch. “I don’t see the spirit of someone who is attempting here.”

Jinsoul knew how to stand on her own during a fight. Did that constitute as strength? Or was it something like Jungkook’s biceps, the type of muscles that could open a pickle jar in one try? She looked at her right palm and ran her thumb over her lifeline. Then clenched it, felt some part of her forearm smart up in pain, God knows where it was exactly, hard to tell in the dark.

The boxing thing really wasn’t a bad idea, even if it had girls. Yerim would probably feel relieved by that, anyway - in her world, girls couldn’t be as bad as boys.

Jinsoul pressed her knee down to the ground and willed her leg to stop. Jungkook was a good boy for suggesting her the club. She would have to buy him a chocolate bar or something. Or, well -- an idea suddenly springing in her mind, Jinsoul sketched a chocolate bar on her paper and wrote, _this is not a chocolate bar_ on it. Then, in parenthesis: _Google translate in French for the real Magritte feeling_. She flashed him a thumbs up, and he showed her his teeth in return. It definitely counted as smile in her book. As he walked back to his seat as bundle of nerves, Jinsoul handed him her drawing of the chocolate bar. He took it, looked at it, then sat down, and stared with his eyes so big that it almost looked like they were about to fall off his face.

“Are you for real,” Jungkook whispered. It didn’t seem like a question.

“Chocolate bars would mess up with this,” Jinsoul answered, pointing at his bicep. “I’m being considerate.”

Jungkook looked at her, then back to the paper, and scrunched his entire face together to keep himself from laughing. Jinsoul considered it a win in her book.

 

True to the pictures on Google, _Swan Boxing Club_ was donned in nothing but black: only pink neon lights on the steps and the doorframe served as any semblance of color and decoration. There were no advertisements on the windows, no membership pleas. It looked nothing like a boxing club, and certainly nothing that you’d visit in the afternoon. If it was something other than a boxing club, Jinsoul would have to take the picture of the chocolate bar away from Jungkook. She’d worked hard on it, after all.

As she opened the door and walked inside, the first thing that struck her was how _warm_ the place felt, even more so than it was outside. From further inside, she could hear sounds of something solid hit soft material. The brick walls were painted black, with a large poster advertising to _dance like a swan and sting like a b*tch_. Pictured under the text was a girl with hair and boxing gloves in a matching pink and red lens flares accompanying a mean glare. At least, it looked pink from the way the white-blue lights reflected the banner.

“Hi”, she heard someone say from her left. Jinsoul turned around and came face-to-face with a girl about her height. Brown hair that went all the way to her small but defined breasts, big eyes, and an even wider smile. She looked like she belonged to an advertisement rather than to real life. She looked like she belonged anywhere but here.

Jinsoul felt her legs twinge. A flash of a thought: her mouth on this girl’s.

As if she could read her thoughts, the girl smiled a little wider. “This your first time?” she asked. She had a deep voice, the type that probably talked on hours on end without breaking a sweat. And from the way she opened her mouth, it looked like she had two teeth protruding, a little like a bunny. “I’ve never seen you before.”

“That’s because I haven’t been here before,” Jinsoul said, her tongue feeling like lead.

The girl laughed. “Yeah, I’ve been saying that.”

“Then I just repeated it.”

She blinked, smile going from polite to genuine, and in a smooth motion leaned forward with  her chin resting on her hand. Jinsoul wanted to slam the girl’s face against her own in the least flattering way possible, and something told her the girl felt the same way. “So…” the girl said, her voice trailing.

So… _when do we get to kiss,_ Jinsoul wanted to say. Her body tightened uncomfortably at things her brain wanted to do. She wasn’t here for that kind of thing, she told herself, but even then she felt like doing things, things she didn’t want to do and wasn’t here for. The girl had pretty eyes, so large that Jinsoul could feel herself get sucked in whole. This was so awkward.

“Yves!” a second voice said, and only then did Jinsoul realize she’d been standing and staring into the girl’s eyes. The girl blinked, dazed for a second, then turned back around to the woman that called her out. She was short and had crescents as eyes, her lips colored a bright pink. “Here you are! Vivi was looking for you. She was saying, what the hell is Yves doing, and I was like, I thought she was with you! And Vivi, she gave me _that_ look--”

The girl groaned, as if she could visualize it perfectly.

“I know right! She was like, clearly she’s not with me, so where _is_ she, Tiff unnie? And I realized I didn’t actually know what you were up to! You should be practicing for the match!”

“The match is, what, three days away? You don’t think I can relax here for a second?”

Jinsoul blinked. Her brain processed all of this in an agonizingly slow second.

What was an Yves?

“Yves. Vivi wants you with her.”

She’s said it again. It took Jinsoul another second to process it. Yves… was that a name? That girl was called Yves? Who the _hell_ was called Yves?

“I had told her I was gonna stand at the reception though?” The girl (Yves???) asked back. “She can’t be serious. She knows--”

“Clearly you’re no good here, though. Did you tell the girl about our membership? She’s new, isn’t she?” _Tiff_ looked at Jinsoul now. “You’re new, aren’t you?”

Jinsoul opened her mouth, then closed it, then opened it. Was she new here? Yeah. Yeah she was. “Yeah,” she said.

“Yeah! Welcome to _Swan_ ! My name’s Tiffany!” _Tiff…_ Tiffany smiled a little brighter. “This is a boxing club exclusively for women, and we host fights every Thursday and Saturday. But you really don’t have to join those or anything! It’s just a safe space for women to fight without men being, you know.” She rolled her eyes. Jinsoul didn’t know, actually, but it felt impolite to say. “So I thought, why not make a club for ladies! It’s a safe space for girls like us! Do you wanna get started? The whole thing is based on memberships and they last like a year, you know, like a library card if you have that? But, _of course_ ,” that was said in English, “first time’s free! What do you say?”

Jinsoul had nothing to say to that. Listening to Tiffany felt like an extreme sport. Judging the girl - Yves’ - big look, she was definitely not the only one who felt that way. But soon, she regained composure, and blinked at Jinsoul. Jinsoul felt it twitch between her legs again.

“You’re going to say yes, aren’t you?” Yves asked.

What kind of parent saw a baby and thought to themselves, _let’s call them_ Yves, out of all things? And what kind of girl saw someone like Yves and said no?

“Sure,” Jinsoul said. “I’ll join.”

Tiffany clasped her hands together. Jinsoul bet she could see a little halo shine around her if she squinted. “ _Oh my gosh_ , great! I’ll set everything up then, hold on, let me get a form for you--” She wheeled around and only now seemed to notice that Yves was still here. “Yves!” she said. “Get to Vivi already!”

Yves glanced at Jinsoul with her lips pressed, then turned to Tiffany with her face neutral again. “Right away,” she said and walked her way around the counter to one of the rooms inside. Her knees were wrapped, but it didn’t stop her legs from looking ridiculously long (ridiculously hot). Her hair was long behind her back, straight like a waterfall.

“You with me?” Tiffany asked. Jinsoul turned around to her. There was a form on the desk now, reminding Jinsoul of when she had to fake her mother’s sign for all sorts of things. “This is the form, just state your name, birthdate, all that jazz, and here below you tick whether or not you wanna be in the fights too, every Thursday and Saturday. It’s your choice, of course! But the training depends on that.”

Jung Jinsoul, born June 13th, height 162cm, weight 55kg, girlfriends 0, attended lessons -1, grades down-the-drain, and yes, she would join the fights. Signed, an unreadable mess.

“Perfect,” Tiffany said and gave the paper a look over. It did seem backwards, but Jinsoul wasn’t about to complain. She grabbed a calendar and turned its pages. “We have a policy of every member having a second name. Think of it as a stage name! What’s yours gonna be?”

“Yves is…?”

“Yeah, that was the girl before. You can’t take her name.”

So her parent hadn’t thought of Yves as a proper child’s name. But that meant… the girl chose the name _herself_? That seemed a lot more ridiculous though. It’s one thing to be born with a cursed name and another to curse yourself.

“Can you think of anything?” Tiffany asked.

“Uh…” Pretty Gangster was probably too long, and her own name wouldn’t fly. She pouted her lips. Tiffany’s eyes were expectant, her pretty pink lips still curled up to a smile. Pretty pink like a Barbie doll. Barbie dolls that were blonde and pretty, just like Jinsoul herself. “Barbie,” Jinsoul said. Her brain seemed content with the idea.

“When are you free for your first match? Do you want a coach?”

“I’ve fought before,” Jinsoul said.

Tiffany pouted, her eyes on the calendar. “Doesn’t really answer my question, hmm?”

“No.” After a moment’s consideration, she added, “No, I don’t need a coach.”

“Alright then.” Tiffany stopped turning the pages, her pink pen tapping idly against the calendar. “I’m thinking of July seventeenth with Kim Lip, that’s tomorrow in two weeks. You cool with that?”

 _Kim Lip._ More weird names people chose for themselves. “Sure,” Jinsoul said.

“Great.” Tiffany wrote down her name. “It’s at 8 pm. Feel free to drop by whenever you want to until then, yeah? Training is free for all the members.”

Jinsoul nodded.

“We’re happy to have you!”

 

 _thanks for telling me the place,_ Jinsoul texted Jungkook once she arrived to her room. _got a match secured in like two weeks_

 _what??? omg lol_ was Jungkook’s answer. _want me to be around?_

Huh. Jinsoul’s fingers flew across the keyboard. _thought it was girls only?_

 _even the fights???????????_ Jungkook texted.

_i dunno. hope i don’t look like google to you_

_dfdlfksjjlkfdgkjl anyways i heard they choose stage names. what’s yours?_

Jinsoul’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. Then, slowly: _it’s barbie_

The second she hit send and watched the little 1 disappear, she regretted telling him.

 _omg_ , Jungkook said at first. Then: _LKJDFSJLKDFJLKFDHKL_

She rolled her eyes. Boys were all like this. _shut up idiot_ , she responded. Jungkook sent a flurry of cry-laughing emojis, but for the rest of the night didn’t press further.

 

In real life, cry-laughing was near impossible and even if it _was_ possible, it wasn’t something Yerim would do. Presently, Yerim furrowed her eyebrows as if she hadn’t heard properly. Jinsoul was quite sure her ears were working well.

“Not sure if I’m gonna train, though,” Jinsoul concluded her recap from earlier. “You can’t train outside when boys fight you. You know?”

Yerim didn’t, although in her mind, watching it on television probably counted as “knowledge”. But she didn’t know about girls either. You can’t train how to fight when girls fight you. The way they get you is hardly ever physical, but all the same vicious and as sudden as a needle piercing your skin.

“No?” Yerim’s voice was weak. She blinked as if she didn’t know where she was. “I don’t-- What--”

Jinsoul reached over to Yerim, eyebrows furrowed. “Want me to knock your head? It helps PCs sometimes to hit them at the side when their insides don’t work. Think that works out for people too.”

Yerim blinked, shook her head, and furrowed her eyebrows again. “No no no no no,” she said, her voice back to its usual strength. “I’m just-- it’s just-- You’re gonna… fight people on a _stage_?”

“The spotlight’s gonna feel weird.” Jinsoul pursed her lips. “It’s definitely gonna make me sweat, but.”

“But that’s not the problem!” Yerim threw her backpack to the side of the bed and sat down opposite Jinsoul.

“I don’t know what is, then.”

“It’s just-- what about--” Yerim pointed at the desk behind her. “Do you _ever_ think about your studies?”

“Yesterday I was thinking about starting on the new assignment. Something about reading a book. But then I looked at the book in the library, and it was so thick I felt tired just looking at it. I went home and took a nap.”

Yerim’s mouth hung open.

“I think I’ll ask for notes and cram when I have to. Works every time.” It was one of the things that _had_ worked out for her. Graduating from high school had been a miracle. Her body shuddered just from the memory.

“It’s not-- I don’t-- Cramming isn’t the solution, you know! What about attendance in classes and and and-”

Yerim’s brain seemed to work, no matter of how questionable the speed was. So what _was_ the problem? Jinsoul crossed her arms. “I don’t get it. You wanted me to do this.”

“I told you! I don’t want you to fight at all!”

“I said that was impossible.” She looked outside the window: yet another brick wall apartment complex. Maybe if she was a private investigator or something she’d enjoy the sight, but it was all her parents could afford, or wanted to. “If you don’t wanna come support that’s fine. I can go myself. Guess I’m not telling you that anymore.”

“No! Oh my god,” Yerim held Jinsoul’s hand. “Please tell me everything. We’re best friends, aren’t we?”

Jinsoul hummed in agreement. Quite a funny story how _that_ had worked out between these two. Twenty-one and fifteen. Or was Yerim seventeen already? Ages tended to blur.

“But it’s just… I’m so worried about you.”

“It’s the last thing I need.” Jinsoul didn’t move her eyes away from the brick walls. “Just want you to show up.”

“Okay,” Yerim said. She didn’t ask why. “Okay, I’m gonna do that, _but._ You gotta promise me.”

Jinsoul rolled her eyes. “What.”

“I’m only gonna do it if you do your assignment. For me. Okay?”

Always that _but_. “Fine,” Jinsoul said. Suddenly going out to train seemed like a lot more fun.

 

July seventeenth, Kim Lip versus Barbie. Eight PM  entrance (ladies only), half an hour entrance for contestants. Who even needed half an hour to get dressed, though? Half an hour was more than enough time to not just get dressed, but also remember things that Jinsoul didn't want to.

The setting had enough familiar things for the memories to return. They were as follows: the brick walls of the lobby that reminded Jinsoul of the brick walls that were all around her dorm room, of the streets where the boys looked like vultures, begging to be punched; her gym bag, black and worn out and the zipper unhinged at the very end of the line, the way it thud on the ground and made her feel fifteen all over again; the clothes themselves that she still had from high school, the way they were still a little too tight around her breast and the seams ripped a little; and lastly, the locker room itself, looking just like the one their high school had. An ever-universal experience.

“You the new girl?” a girl asked. She was a few centimeters shorter than Jinsoul and had dyed grey hair that she had tied together at the top. Her eyes looked somewhere between know-it-all and endlessly curious. None of that was particularly familiar except the way she asked the question - challenging above all, but also sinister, as if she was going to tell the next person about it. ‘ _You know, I heard from a friend’s friend’s girlfriend, and she said that’_ sort of vibe.

“Yeah,” Jinsoul said.

“I’m Kim Lip,” she said, “and you know, I am kind of excited to see what type of fighter you are. Because last time I’ve seen a new fighter was maybe like a month ago? And then it felt like fighting a sandbag. I really didn’t like it. People that don’t punch back have nothing to do here.”

None of the girls she fought told her that, but then, none of the girls she fought were part of a boxing club where you had the choice to name yourself _Kim Lip_ or _Yves._ “If you don’t punch back, you land to the ground faster,” Jinsoul said, her gym clothes untouched.

Kim Lip laughed. She was taking off her shirt, revealing patches of bandaid and various bruises on her pale skin. If she was caring about whether or not Jinsoul was going to dress, she didn't speak of it. “That's right. I hope you do punch back, though. Makes more fun to know that way who will land at the ground first.”

Jinsoul chanced a look at Kim Lip and felt like laughing. _Who_ will land first? With Kim Lip's noodle arms and her thin stature, she couldn't possibly be asking that. She had fought boys a lot stronger than this girl, and she had won against them. Girls like Kim Lip were familiar, sure, familiar in the way they talked so much and said even more with their eyes, so vicious, so green in their evilness like from an old Disney movie. But physical strength? No way. Jinsoul rolled her shoulder, feeling it tense up a little. She would win against Kim Lip even in this condition.

"You think that's funny?" Kim Lip said, glancing at Jinsoul. She pulled over a red tank top that looked so tight on her that her small chest looked big.

"You do look a little..." Jinsoul tilted her head.

"Thin?" Kim Lip finished the sentence. "Yeah. But so are you."

"I'm stronger than you."

Now it was Kim Lip's turn to grin. Coupled with the challenging look, it felt intimately familiar that she couldn't even call it a memory. "Yeah? We'll see about that."

“I’ll do more than punch back. The whole thing will be done in a round.”

Kim Lip chuckled. “Cool. I like that sort of confidence.” She sized up Jinsoul, her eyes resting on her eyes. The grin was gone as fast as it had come. “You-- Are you not going to fight with gloves? Or anything that's, you know.”

She didn't, but it didn't matter. “No.”

"You might be-- Oh well!" The smirk returned. “In the end, the only thing that matters is whether you win or lose, right?”

"Right."

"I wish you all the best. I want to win, of course, but if you do, I'm okay with that." Kim Lip flashed a genuine smile, like they've been friends for a while. They hadn't fought in a locker room, she hadn't commented on anything about Jinsoul's appearance or telepathically picked up other things. She felt uncomfortable at this sort of ease. Who did that, just strike up a friendly conversation with your opponent? Who did that, just strike up casual chit-chat with a girl in a locker room? What did Jinsoul even say to something so...

She should've just called her dyke. The conversation would've went a lot easier for Jinsoul then.

"Thank you," Jinsoul wringed the words out. "Here's to a good match."

Kim Lip’s smile widened. “I sure hope so.”

Only when Kim Lip left did Jinsoul even begin to breathe. That had been decidedly unfamiliar, and even so, it had reminded her all the stronger of what _was_ familiar. Her legs bounced up and down, images of locker encounters flashing in her mind in rapid succession. She would beat them. She would beat Kim Lip up for being so nice. Memories had no chance of coming up when the rush of adrenaline was in her blood, when the feeling of triumph was close to her chest and full in her mouth.

She opened the zipper of her bag, always requiring extra force at the end. Getting dressed alone, getting dressed alone and late, that was familiar. It reminded her of when her P.E teacher always rolled at her eyes at how Jinsoul would come in late, not surprised anymore, and tell her for the nth time that her P.E grade would suffer from this. As if anyone in the history of P.E classes in her high school got something lower than an A. They weren't going to start the tradition with Jinsoul out of all people, she knew as much, and of course, she had been right. The memory made her chuckle a little now - her teacher never knew of anything, huh - and when she got dressed in her old gym clothes, she could forget about the incident. It set her at ease thinking about how her teacher had bald spots on his head, a little like a kiwi with eyes and mouth.

Once she was dressed, she went out and to the little gym across the hall. The crowd was starting to form, women of all ages standing around and chattering excitedly. She saw someone with dreads stand next to an office lady, both of them whispering something about "bets" and "Kim Lip" and "the newbie". Kim Lip herself was on the ring, jumping around and jabbing into the air. When she saw Jinsoul, she smiled brightly and waved her hand like they were going to eat together at lunch. Back then nobody had wanted to sit next to Jinsoul except for boys. Yerim wasn't around yet, but Jinsoul knew she would be. She had said yes, after all.

"Are you excited?" Kim Lip asked as Jinsoul climbed onto the ring. "Your first fight on here. Feels weird being watched, right?"

Jinsoul nodded, avoiding the know-it-all/curious gaze. Kim Lip should shut up and they should get it over with.

"It's just not the same as a street fight," Kim Lip continued. "Because you fight and nobody gives a real shit, I mean sometimes they do, but they know better than to cheer on for you. But it always reminds me of hallway fights. You know?"

Jinsoul knew. Very much so. Kim Lip _really_ needed to be quiet.

Kim Lip, seemingly okay with how Jinsoul didn’t answer, looked behind her, eyes wide and alight. "Holy shit. Are my eyes fooling me?"

"Told you, you definitely need glasses," a familiar voice said from behind Jinsoul. She turned around, and it was the hottest girl in the world with the most cursed name in the world. Judging Yves' gaze, she had an inkling that (she really wanted Yves between her legs) she thought similarly of Jinsoul. Her body jolted with electricity.

"It's you," Yves said. Her voice sounded all confident, but her eyes were darting all around Jinsoul's body, and her smile was wavering. "I thought you were bailing on me."

"I never say no to a fight," Jinsoul said.

"That--" Yves' eyes were trained on Jinsoul's chest, and she coughed and looked away. "Is definitely a good trait to have."

"My god, unnie," Kim Lip said with a devilish grin and nudged Yves with her elbow. "Make it less obvious, will you?"

Yves nodded, her eyes ready to drill holes into Kim Lip if they could. "I really hope you lose today."

"You always say that, but then when I fight against someone you laugh at them."

Yves glanced at Jinsoul. "I hope you don't make me laugh today," she said.

The uncomfortable feeling that Jinsoul had had at the start turned to something else; turned more sinister, more distilled. Hatred. "I'm not doing this for you."

Yves grinned, pushed past Kim Lip and walked up to Jinsoul. Her eyes had the confidence back that she'd seen the first time on the reception, the plastered smile on her face looking dangerous all of a sudden. Jinsoul had to look up to her. "That's what you say for now. That's what they all say at the start, you know. That they won't do it with me in mind. Always cracks me up. But I hope you're different." She glanced at Jinsoul's chest. "Not just because I think you're pretty hot."

They were words that were supposed to make sense, or were probably deep enough for other people to decipher it. Maybe Yerim could tell her what it meant? Jinsoul glanced at the audience, but there was still no sight of her friend. "I don't know who you are," Jinsoul said. _I think you're pretty hot too_ were waiting to be said out loud on her tongue, coupled with _I want to beat your face up_. "I honestly don't care."

"Keep it that way." Yves was walking past her and got down the ring. "I like that."

"Oh wow," Kim Lip said. "Way to make me feel like a third-wheel here. Even though I was the one to greet her first."

Yves flashed the finger in Kim Lip's direction, to which Kim Lip laughed.

"Are you two ready?" Tiffany called, smile bright and lips once again pink. In her hands she held a little gong. "I'll start the fight then if everyone's around! It's already late."

And behind her was the familiar uniform of--

"Eyes on me," Kim Lip said with a grin and leaned forward. "You told me you wouldn't go down right away."

If Kim Lip's voice had been a notch deeper then Jinsoul would've straight up called it a memory.

"And what if I didn't?" Jinsoul asked sweetly.

Kim Lip laughed, and even Tiffany's eyes crinkled up in amusement as she went to the middle of the ring. "Things really are different on the boxing ring than in school. This is gonna be fun."

"Are you both ready?" Tiffany held up the gong. Once Jinsoul and Kim Lip nodded, she hit on it, and the sound reverberated through the little gym hall.

Fighting boys had been fun in high school, a different kind of fun compared to now. _Hey, Jinsoul, you up for a round?_ they used to ask her. Minsoo with his dumb glasses/braces combo that always avoided every single one of Jinsoul's punches, and Kyujong with his stupid gelled hair who always threw a fit when Jinsoul messed it up, reedy voice yelling _hey! I spent ten minutes on it, bitch!_ and Hyunseung who played for the soccer team, always trying to kick when they had agreed on a fist fight. Together they’d lounge around behind the school where ivy spread out on the walls, probably this close to getting destructed. Jinsoul and Kyujong and Minsoo and Hyunseung never really liked each other, but every afternoon at 3 pm they'd gather around, play a round of rock paper scissors, and the loser--

Kim Lip punched her in her face. Jinsoul barely avoided the second punch, and when she threw a punch, her fist scraped Kim Lip's still grinning face. Then Kim Lip threw a fist on Jinsoul's stomach and she couldn't breathe anymore.

With the next one she was already on the ground. She pulled herself up to a fetus position, her eyes shut. Kim Lip _would_ kick her stomach, and those always hurt the worst. That was how it always went in street fights. It was about humiliation - and if Jinsoul didn't love the idea of humiliating men.

She felt someone loom above her, one second and then two, but they didn't hit, either.

"Hey," Tiffany said. "Are you okay?"

Jinsoul opened her eyes. Jinsoul saw Yerim across her with wide eyes and all worried _,_ like she was pitying her. Jinsoul saw Yves at the far back; it was impossible to miss her with her red shirt.

Jinsoul saw Yves at the far back laughing her ass off.

"I'm fine," Jinsoul said, her stomach throbbing slightly. She got up, and Tiffany's serious gaze returned to its smiley state.

Kim Lip wasn't laughing at her. "I wouldn't do that," she said seriously. "Kicking you."

It didn't matter if she did. Plenty girls had done so before. Maybe Kim Lip _should_ kick her instead of saying she didn't. What was she expecting? For Jinsoul to show any mercy because of it?

"Fight me," Jinsoul said. Distantly she noticed the hard edge in her voice. "Seriously."

"Sure," Kim Lip said. "But I've been doing that the entire time."

Five minutes later Jinsoul found herself on the ground again, pain spreading everywhere like fireworks. She struggled to keep her eyes open, her vision blackening around the edges and blurry. But at the far back, she still could see Yves, and Yves was still laughing with her hands on her stomach.

 _You're really so fucking pathetic, aren't you? Always wearing clothes that are too tight to you. You're not impressing anyone here. Stupid fucking bitch_ , she heard in her mind, voice close to Yves'.

And then-- darkness.

 

"You can't be real."

The other voice was too distant for Jinsoul's ears to make out. Feminine was all she could say it was.

"Sure, I mean, whatever you wanna do, but-- she's one of those." This voice felt familiar, but it had none of the usual confidence she'd heard it with before. "You know."

Jinsoul blinked her eyes open to a yellowed ceiling, afternoon sun illuminating the place. The ground underneath her was soft compared to the boxing ring. Everything hurt and felt stiff. Where was she? Last she remembered-- Jinsoul had to rack her brain for a second, but then the memory came perfectly clear. She shut her eyes close again, her body tightening to an emotion she couldn’t place.

"All you care about is who you train with," the other person said, this time close enough for Jinsoul to hear. Her voice was pitched slightly higher than Yves' and a little accented, Chinese, maybe. "As if I don't know you, you goddamn mess."

"Isn't that-"

"You don't wanna beat up anyone you find hot. And you don't want anyone you find hot be beaten up, even when you just met them five minutes ago. That's what makes you a mess. And don't you dare to argue back with me, missy."

"Well-- yeah?" There was no mistaking it now. That was Yves. What was she doing it here? "That's the whole point. I don't punch girls I find hot. I pound them."

The other person's laugh got stuck in their throat. "You-- you definitely did punch me back then."

She laughed. "No offense, but I really don't think you're all that attractive."

Jinsoul heard steps come closer and closer until someone was right above her.

"You look awfully stiff for someone sleeping," the Chinese girl said. "You're really not fooling me."

Jinsoul blinked her eyes open again, and above her stood a petite girl with cold eyes and bangs that made her head look short. "Welcome back to the land of living."

What? She wasn’t dead. “I’m not--” she started, but her voice sounded hoarse. The girl laughed, her point proven, her features melting in an instant.

“I'm Vivi, and you fight like crap. Like really, really bad,” she said. “You beat boys like that, the ones that wear pants so low they would fall if the train did a brake--” Yves laughed from somewhere in the room. "But not boxers. Definitely not boxers.”

Jinsoul tried to sit herself up, but Vivi pushed her down gently. "Too early for that," Vivi said.

"Don't need you to be telling me," Jinsoul started, a cough overcoming her. "Don't need you to tell me how I fight or not."

"I kinda do, because first of all, I'm a coach, and second of all, you can't fight for shit."

Whatever had tightened her body before turned to a familiar sensation in her stomach. "I really," Jinsoul grit out, "Really don't need you tell me."

"Are you going to fight her?" Yves asked loudly, somewhere Jinsoul couldn’t see. Though maybe if Jinsoul could see her she'd probably hoist herself up to fight her. Yves had laughed. Yves had laughed directly at her. She'd laughed at it all, treated it like it was a comedy.

"Shut up, Yves!" Vivi called from behind. Then, to Jinsoul: "You don't want to fight me on this. Though actually, you don't want to be fighting anyone at all in this condition. We can agree on that at least, right?"

She had a point. Jinsoul nodded.

"Good. Let's help you up. It's gonna hurt your stomach a little, so bear with it."

Jinsoul pulled herself back the best she could, and Vivi grabbed Jinsoul from her armpits to hoist her up. Her stomach flared up in pain, and Vivi halted for a moment’s consideration to ease the pain. Now that she was propped, Jinsoul could see Yves on the kitchen counter across the living room, eating grapes like it was for a CF and her eyes on Jinsoul like she was the camera.

"Don't mind her," Vivi said at the same time Jinsoul said, "Does she live here?"

"I do!" Yves said, clearly enjoying Jinsoul's sight.

Vivi glanced at Yves with a thin line on her lips. "She doesn't," Vivi answered. "But she likes to pretend she does, because my girlfriend's in the US right now for a semester and Yves likes to overwork herself here."

"Consider it warming your bed up for your girl!" Yves called with a laugh. She was enjoying herself too much. Jinsoul wanted to beat her up most.

"You know, I think you fight crap on a technical level," Vivi continued, disregarding Yves, "But when you went to that fetus position, I can't lie, it did look like you know a thing or two about fighting at least. And then when you got up-- that look in your eyes--" She shivered a little. "You look like this in bed too?"

Jinsoul heard Yves violently cough. "Unnie!" she said.

"I-" Jinsoul said.

"Not like it matters to me. I have a girlfriend and I'm loyal to her. I'm just saying-- this kind of thing, I like it. That's why I want to help you. I can make you fight better." Jinsoul opened her mouth, but Vivi put a finger on her lips. "Because," Vivi continued, "you can't tell me you've fought well or that you feel proud of losing against some above-average fighter like Kim Lip. You can't tell me that."

Jinsoul pressed her lips, the tightness in her body back again. So that was what it was. Her eyes burned and welled up with tears at the same time.

Vivi smiled kindly and put a hand on her shoulder. "I know how that feels," she said. "Up to you if you don't want me to tell you how to fight. I’m cool with both. I'm just gonna patch you up, so stay here tonight and tell me your answer next morning, okay?"

Jinsoul nodded, her lip quivering. She'd lost. She'd fucking lost.

"Aww. Come here." Vivi put her other hand on the back of Jinsoul's head and pressed her to her chest, probably so she could sob loudly. Jinsoul felt snot threatening to come out of her nose, but no tears. Her head was beginning to pound.

"What kind of privilege!" Yves protested.

"That’s nice girls privilege," Vivi said, pressing Jinsoul closer. "Something you'll never be or get."

Yves gasped. "She's _nice_ now? Wow."

"At least a lot nicer than you are!" Vivi was speaking an awful lot for someone that had only just met Jinsoul. But it was probably one of _those_ schemes - talking about one person to drag another.

"You should rest," Vivi said and let go of Jinsoul. "Come on." Gently she lay down Jinsoul down the bed. "I'll take care of Yves over here."

"Do you--" Jinsoul started _._ Yves' laughter filled her mind.

"Goodnight, hon," Vivi said, walked up to Yves and argued with her loudly as if Jinsoul wasn't around at all. Vivi laughed half of the time as if she was forced to, as if she couldn’t resist. As if Yves just had _that_ much of magnetic charisma or whatever. Yves, on her part, sounded mock upset half of the time, but smug all of the time, eager to quip whenever she could.

Yves sounded like the type of boy Jinsoul would befriend.

Yves also sounded like the type of girl Jinsoul would have a fist fight with.

 

She woke up, the first thing she registered pain exploding on her stomach and on her face. It felt like being on fire and having needles poke her skin all at once, something she was sure she didn't have last evening. What had this woman Vivi done to her? Why couldn't she have--

Before she could form another thought, she felt a loud noise from the kitchen.

Jinsoul's eyes fluttered - no, _ripped_ open - and as she hoisted herself up a lot slower than she wanted it to be, she heard someone frantically roam about in the kitchen. Someone with long, brown hair and a petite-looking frame.

The girl turned her face, hair whipping past her face, and Jinsoul immediately felt anger flare up.

"Oh," Yves said. "I'm sorry, did I wake you up?"

_Yes, you did._

"Ah, no," Jinsoul said, voice completely tinged with sleep. "Woke up a little before that."

Yves nodded. "Vivi's currently having her shift, so if you want to, we can have breakfast together."

Slowly Jinsoul looked around. Now that Yves was standing, there was no other noise coming from inside. She could hear the birds chirping from the window.

"She won't be around until afternoon, you know, so you don't need to wait for her or anything. She eats whatever I cook anyway, so..."

Jinsoul rubbed the sleep off her eyes and stretched herself. She shouldn't have breakfast with this girl. Realistically she should be going to class, fooling around with Jungkook at the back over some assignment she yet again didn't have. Assignment. Yerim. She--

"Okay? Breakfast for us two?" Yves asked, a little louder this time.

The assignment could wait, and so could Yerim.

"Okay," Jinsoul said.

"Sorry, did you say something?"

 _Fuck you._ "I said okay."

"Good. Um, not to be the type that tells you what to do, but-- actually are you into that?"

Jinsoul tossed the blanket away, still in the same gym clothes she'd fought Kim Lip with, and got up as slowly as possible to reduce the pain.

"Sorry if that was weird," Yves said.

"It's cool." It was anything _but_ cool, but Yves wasn't about to find that out. Jinsoul went inside the tiny bathroom - washing machine right opposite a sink and a tiny shower cabin - and washed her face first, then sloshed her mouth. Normally after she fought, she just went to class the next day like nothing had happened. There wouldn't be this feeling of... well, _weirdness_ ; of something lurking at the back of her mind that would resurface if Jinsoul let it happen. She'd feel sore at best, and if anyone happened to look at her funny, she'd glare back and wear her bruises like a proud armor. But now she was about to have breakfast with a girl (a girl that made her think of having sex with; a girl that made her think of having a brawl with), and going to class was probably not happening, either.

The water ran idly between her hands. Jinsoul closed the tap and went out of the restroom. The living room smelled of pancakes, a smell so strong and delicious that it got Jinsoul's stomach to grumble loudly. She heard Yves laugh from the kitchen.

"Come on, it's good," she said, voice muffled as if she stuffed one into her mouth. Jinsoul wanted it to be untrue. Jinsoul wanted to go to class. Yet she found her mouth water a little at the sight of the pancakes, marmalade and maple syrup on the table alongside two cups of tea, and yet she found herself sit down, entire body kicking into food-mode. She barely managed a "thank you for the meal" before eagerly shoving a pancake into her mouth. It _was_ good; she closed her eyes in bliss for a second, her body relaxing as if that was the cure to everything.

Yves laughed. As Jinsoul opened her eyes she saw Yves with her face on her hands and look at her with eyes that were curious but also warm, smile plastered on her face as if she was just a fun host and as if she hadn't spent the night before laughing at Jinsoul's expense. Jinsoul swallowed the pancake down with relative ease, but the next one on her plate looked a lot less appealing. It was just this imperfect brown circle, brown spots all over it like the bruises on Jinsoul's skin.

"Damn, girl," Yves said. "It's just a pancake, you don't have to look at it like life is a Drake song, you know?"

"I haven't listened to Drake."

"You're honestly not missing out. Your face does more than his discography. To me, anyway." Yves chuckled again. It kind of sounded like she was releasing air all while smiling.

"You always laugh this much?" Jinsoul asked _. Are you always this punchable/kissable_ is what she wanted to ask. Yves would probably laugh at both and make a ridiculous joke of that, anyway. Something like, _Yeah, I always laugh this much, but the better question is why aren't_ you _laughing so much? What's up with that?_

But Yves didn't say a word. She spread marmalade on her pancake, smile gone. "Your name was what again?"

"Ji-"

"The one on the ring."

"Barbie."

Yves chuckled, though she didn't seem very amused by it. "Barbie, then. You know what happens when you don't laugh?"

Her stomach was craving for more pancakes. But she should also work on her assignment, it had been part of her deal with Yerim. "I dunno," Jinsoul said when the silence felt too much.

"What happens when you don't laugh a lot is that people think every word of yours is serious, that everything you say is up for debate, and that..." Yves stabbed a pancake on the pile with her fork. "That you just don't know how to have fun. You feel?"

"That's just what people say." Jinsoul eventually settled on eating the pancake, this time by pouring syrup onto it until there was a little pile of goo on the pancake.

Yves chuckled. "You're aware that what people say leads back to you, right? Like how a breakup leads you from having someone sleeping next to you in bed to you, yourself and your hand. That sort of thing. And once I realized I could laugh at everything, I mean, why _wouldn't_ I take it?"

"Because there's shit you don't laugh about." Jinsoul took a bite of her pancake. It was a lot more syrup than it was actual pancake.

"Somebody sounds pretty bitter." The amusement was back again, and Jinsoul didn't have to look up into Yves' eyes to know that she was enjoying this.

"Somebody sounds like they're pitying themselves," Jinsoul said.

Silence for a moment. Jinsoul did look up then: Yves looked taken aback, her eyes wide, mouth slightly ajar and her hands frozen mid-movement. "I'm not--" she brought out. "I'm not--"

The door swung open. "I'm back!" Vivi said into the silence.

"Hi," Yves said absentmindedly.

"You guys ate without me? Rude. And not just that, but also--" With quick steps Vivi was already in the kitchen, peering onto the table next to Jinsoul. "Really? That's not even nutritious. As expected of you, loser."

Yves looked at her, nodded, then resumed her food.

"Huh." Vivi turned her head to Jinsoul, her eyes alight. "Have you made your decision yet?"

Jinsoul nodded.

"Good. Great!" Vivi straightened up. "I don't need to convince you then. Finish up and then we'll start the training."

Jinsoul and Yves both finished their breakfast in silence, a little crease between Yves' eyebrows throughout. Vivi called for Jinsoul right away, and Yves lifted a hand up to say that she would do the dishes.

"I'm not pitying myself," she said quietly, her back turned to Jinsoul.

"Prove it, then," Jinsoul answered. Usually that was enough to rile someone up.

But Yves didn't say a word, and when Jinsoul heard the tap water running, she knew the conversation was over.

 

Vivi's assignments were, somehow, not too different from what Jinsoul got in her art lessons: they were equally taxing and equally boring. Making jumping jacks had no difference from drawing circles, because what Jinsoul really wanted to do was to fight. And if she could choose her opponent, it would be Yves.

"What's up with this half-assed  pose!" Vivi yelled. She was sitting behind the steering wheel of an old VW Beetle with a megaphone on her hand. "Run straight! Run properly! I could outpace you no problem!"

 _You're sitting behind a car_ , Jinsoul wanted to say, but all that came out was a tired huff. She'd been running for long enough for her to forget about time. Her legs were screaming at her to stop, and somehow she was still running the same city blocks. They were blurring in her vision, blending into one another to one long nightmare.

"Faster! Faster!" Vivi said. "Last spurt!"

Jinsoul couldn't see a finish line anywhere. Wherever that last spurt was it better be there soon, because just putting a leg up required more energy than she had. Lying down for a hundred years seemed like a better idea. One step, then another - and Vivi yelled stop. Jinsoul collapsed right then and there on the concrete. So much to beating up Yves. So much to Vivi telling her she could make her better.

Vivi put something cold on her cheek. "Drink up," she said. "We're going to take a break for a bit."

Finally. Jinsoul let out another huff, though it sounded a lot more human-like this time.

"Don't look so relieved. You got another ten laps to run."

Anything was better than a fight right now. Even a loss. Even a loss by Yves where she'd laugh.

"Come on, Barbie. You just wanna be that in name, right? Not actually a Barbie doll that can't put up a fight."

Jinsoul groaned as an answer.

"Get up, hm?"

And so Jinsoul did, her heart beating like crazy.

It wouldn't be the last time she fell like this, nor the last time she had to run a felt thousand laps around the same buildings. Vivi would wake her at 5am, asking her to run before she even ate anything. And when she did get to eat, it usually had something with beef in it, or eggs, or worse, oatmeal. Fights with other boys were forbidden now, as were sparring sessions and fights with other girls, and working on assignments as an aside was a must.

"Education is important. You don't wanna be like me and ditch Hong Kong for some fighting bullshit, you know," Vivi said, smile big on her face when she saw Jinsoul completely drained. Vivi liked watching Jinsoul with a smile when Jinsoul was struggling, liked complaining about Jinsoul's form whenever she could (which was nine out of ten times), and liked to banter with Yves whenever she was around Vivi's flat, which was also nine out of ten times. "Having a rivalry is good," Vivi would say whenever Yves complained about _that girl_ being there, “but you shouldn't think of her as one right now.” She said that nine out of ten times.

That sort of thing made Jinsoul want to fight right this instant. Just get up, walk to the kitchen where Yves was to cook, and then wham - slap her across her face. Because if she was caught off-guard, then she'd have no chance of fighting back.

"Do you want something?" Yves would say whenever Jinsoul got to the kitchen. Deer-like eyes, small nose, and big lips. Lips that didn't smile anymore, and made her a lot hotter that way. A lot, lot more kissable.

That sort of thing made Jinsoul want to plant her face onto Yves' and then see what happens. Because if she was caught off-guard, she'd get a chance to kiss back too.

"No," Jinsoul answered and walked out of the flat. Nine out of ten times.

The tenth time, it happened in Jinsoul's mind. The tenth time, it's what Jinsoul saw when she hit at the mitt that Vivi held up. The tenth time was what Jinsoul didn't want to happen - the one time she'd actually kiss her.

 _Get away from us, you dyke!_ she heard, voices like the cawing of crows. That was the tenth time, the time whenever she let her mind slip and wander and enter territories she didn't want to be in.

"Your heart isn't in this!" Vivi would yell then. "Come on! I want to see you do your best!"

Jinsoul would feel a sliver of gratitude for her whenever she did so. In that aspect, she was a little like Yerim - Yerim was a lot kinder, of course, a lot more worried, but they had the same look in their eyes, a... lack of evil behind it.

When it was with them, Jinsoul wouldn't think of previously chartered territory. She'd feel weird, a little out of her body, a little alien to this coming from girls, but these were things that softened her punch and the edges around her vision. But all the same - all the same, whether it was Yves or Vivi or Yerim...

"Looking real bothered, huh?" Jungkook asked when they had a class together. "They get at you that hard?"

"Shut up," Jinsoul said testily.

"Damn, chill," Jungkook answered and turned back to whatever the professor was babbling about.

She hadn't been like this. She blamed her lack of strength for it all. If she was strong enough, she'd be unbothered by it all.

 

"How's training going?" Yerim would ask her in the few times Jinsoul would actually return to her dorm room. She kept her hair down now, no more twin tails. The sight of Yerim that way felt weird, as though she looked a lot older than she really was. Jinsoul blinked. Time couldn't have gone by that fast.

"Just fine," she answered.

"Really?" Yerim frowned, scanning Jinsoul. "It's true that you don't have as many bruises anymore, but--"

"Isn't that all that matters." Jinsoul flopped on her bed. Yerim wasn't working on math homework (not anymore?) and Yerim didn't say a word.

"I dunno." Yerim put a hand on Jinsoul's stomach, rubbing it slightly like Jinsoul was a dog. Jinsoul... found she liked it, (that she wanted Yves to do the same to her, maybe even more; that she wished Yerim's hand were Yves' lips), and that pissed her off even more. "It's like... you traded one thing for another?"

She had to fight Yves, beat her up to a pulp, and win against her. That was the only way she could work these feelings to begin with.

"I traded nothing." Jinsoul got up. She had to fight Yves. She had to. "I'll go over to Vivi's in a bit."

"But we _just_ \-- I just came over!" Yerim protested. "And who's Vivi?"

Jinsoul put on her coat and slung her gym bag around her shoulder. "There's something I need to do. You got the keys."

"But--"

Jinsoul shut the door behind her. Had to fight Yves. Had to defeat her. Had to, had to, had to. Yves. Yves. Yves.

"What'd you say?" Vivi said in the dorm. She looked like a college student with her glasses on, a book in her lap ( _Sharp Objects_ by Gilian Flynn, it was called) and her hair bound to a tight bun. "Fight who?"

"You heard me just fine," Jinsoul grit out. In her mind she saw Yves' face all messed up and her own knuckles all bloody, but somehow that didn't make her feel any better.

"I did, but-- no kidding?"

Jinsoul didn't respond, and here Vivi burst into laughter. Even then, it didn't sound evil. "You can't possibly be serious."

"You heard me just fine," Jinsoul repeated.

"You..." Vivi took a breath, regaining her composure. "It's not like you're bad, but you're no match for Yves."

Nine out of ten times.

"Why not?" Jinsoul clenched her fists, felt the pressure rise up to her knuckles all white-hot.

"Because," Vivi said, smile still on her face, "you can't win against the reigning winner of the club. A Barbie got no chance against Miss Black Swan."

Black Swan? "I thought you only had one stage name."

Vivi perched her glasses up. "I'm going to show you."

 

And Vivi did show her on a rainy Wednesday evening. _Yves versus White Swan,_ the fight schedule said, banners all plastered on the brick walls. Or, as the girls of the club kept murmuring, "the battle of the swans." That the White Swan had recovered and was back to reclaim her throne. That it would end up a draw, just to keep interest, by Tiffany's request. Others were saying that the Black Swan was once again back to show, once and for all, that the throne was meant for her. Jinsoul didn't see it. There was nothing swan-like about Yves, and anyway, she wasn't a bird and the second nickname for her really made no sense.

"Watch well," Vivi said, a crease on her forehead. "Maybe then you'll get an idea."

"Of what," Jinsoul said. The air felt humid and used up.

Just then, a loud cheer erupted, starting from the far end of the lobby and reaching all the way to where Jinsoul stood. "Black Swan! Black Swan! Black Swan!" the girls cheered. Jinsoul saw a head of grey hair lift her hands up. Even Kim Lip?

"Strength," Vivi said simply, gaze far away. She shook her head, back in the present again. "What, I'm not going to spell everything out for you! Just wait and you'll see what I mean!"

The screams didn't die down; everyone had something to say or ask or scream to Yves. Jinsoul heard someone say _Yves please be my girlfriend!,_ which everyone great with laughter. Jinsoul couldn't see Yves, nor hear her reaction, nor whether or not she smiled. But her mind could see it all too well: the look of disgust, the mouth curling in contempt. _I'd rather eat shit,_ she could hear her say. Jinsoul closed her eyes shut and opened them again.

Just as the crowd's screams died down, it rose up a second time. White Swan! White Swan! White Swan! Jinsoul could hear this time.

"Swan unnie!" Kim Lip called. "Your knee okay?"

"I'll try my best," came a timid voice from the far end of the gym, loud enough for everyone to hear. "I've got a score to settle."

The girls were cheering for White Swan, but there was nowhere near the same enthusiasm as there was with Yves.  

"She won't have a chance," said someone that was next to Jinsoul, a woman around Tiffany's age with flowing blond hair. As she turned around she noticed that Vivi wasn't standing next to Jinsoul anymore. "White Swan may have recovered or whatever, but Yves hasn't lost a fight in, what? A year? Maybe more than that?"

"I dunno who this White Swan is," Jinsoul said.

The woman frowned, but then realization flashed across her face. "You're the new girl," she said. "You fought against Kim Lip, haven't you?"

Jinsoul pressed her lips from saying yes.

"She's the second strongest of the club," the woman continued, as if Jinsoul knew who the first one was. "You'll see. Though if you aren't fast enough--"

But then it hit her. Strength, Vivi had said. They're all here because of me, Yves had said. And she had said something else. About how Jinsoul was--

What a joke this all was.

Jinsoul elbowed the entire crowd to get to the door, various girls glaring at her, others complaining loudly about _people not knowing a thing about patience_ or whatever. At the front was Tiffany, smiling as always.

"Can't wait to see it, huh?" she asked. "It's gonna be _so_ exciting, Jin- Barbie. Trust me. Yves and Swan is always fun to watch. Not much left either."

Jinsoul had to see it now, as fast as possible. Jinsoul had to see her mind be wrong, the people around her be wrong. She had to see Yves be strong, but not _that_ strong, she had to see Yves be vicious with a smile. She had to...

"Bets are closed, but as long as it's _me_ you're talking to," Tiffany nudged Jinsoul with her elbow and a wink, "you still can do it, you know. Call it newbie privilege, yeah?"

Money. And if she won she'd get more than that. That was perfect. That was _more_ than perfect.

Jinsoul patted her pockets, dug into her tiny ones on her ass, and found a note. She handed it to Tiffany. "For White Swan."

"Bold, but I like it," Tiffany said and tucked the bill in the little notebook she was holding in her hands. She opened the door and yelled: "Come in!"

Even if Jinsoul wanted to go, the crowd pushed her forward. She got right at front, ropes nearly obstructing her view. Countless girls were standing behind her, so close that she almost touched bodies with them and could feel their breath against the nape of her neck.

There on the ring stood a short girl with bangs and a face way too friendly to be anywhere near here, dressed in all white, a knee brace on her right leg. On her corner was a girl with bangs and a face meant for kids TV, smiling brightly as if she challenged the fluorescent lights, the White Swan girl. On the other corner stood Vivi, who glanced at Jinsoul with her eyebrows raised. And there opposite White Swan stood Yves, dressed in all black, hair tied back behind a ponytail. Yves turned her head to Jinsoul, something shimmering in her eyes. She pulled her ponytail (Jinsoul wanted to pull on it, do things on her body), crouched down and stretched her legs, left first.

"If I win this," Yves whispered, " _when_ I win this, I want you to meet me in two weeks' time in the ladies room."

She might as well have dunked Jinsoul in boiling oil or randomly shot her.

"What the fuck," Jinsoul answered.

Yves tilted her head so that Jinsoul could see her face, eyes still unreadable. She shifted position, stretching her right leg. "Let's not pretend," she said with a fake casual voice. "Hope you watch over me well."

 _I'm not going to watch anything,_ Jinsoul should say. Or: _I want to watch you do something else, and it isn't fighting people._ Or: _I want to watch you beg for mercy as I-_ As she what, she didn't know either at this point.

"I bet against you," Jinsoul said.

Yves turned her head in full, blinked, and then burst into laughter. "I like it," she said. "I like you."

Jinsoul blinked, her brain needing a second to process it all. What the fuck.

"Are the girls ready?" Tiffany shouted, climbing up the ring, hands on her hips once she did so.

"You really bet _against_ her?"  Jinsoul heard to her right. It was once again the woman from before. "Prepare to lose that money."

"And you are?" Jinsoul asked, eyes on Yves. The woman was saying something, but what, Jinsoul couldn't hear. The sound of her own heartbeat was louder than anything else.

Yves got up, eyes still not leaving Jinsoul. _Watch over me,_ she mouthed. Who was Jinsoul to say no?

Tiffany gonged the first round, and Jinsoul's eyes were trained on Yves' impeccable figure, on her focused face, her casual stance like boxing was as easy as breathing.

 _Not just because I think you're hot,_ Yves had said.

White Swan threw punches, all of which Yves dodged like it was no big deal. Her own punch landed, causing White Swan to bend over a little.

 _Two weeks' time in the ladies room._ If she won it.

Yves was pretty much landing punch after punch on White Swan now. It looked so easy on her, her face constantly relaxed, her stance casual at all times. She dodged every jab of White Swan like she was the wind, her attacks sudden but graceful. Everything looked fluid, as if she was dancing.

When she won it, she had corrected herself.

 _What the fuck_ was all Jinsoul could think of. Was all that she _wanted_ to think of. Everything else was a spiral into a direction she didn't want to go.

Two weeks' time, in the ladies room.

_I like it. I like you._

What the fuck.

Next thing Jinsoul knew, Yves was standing in the middle, and so was Tiffany - was Tiffany fighting? - and Tiffany held Yves' wrist and held it up and everyone was screaming. White Swan was smiling, but also clearly battered. Why was Tiffany on there?

"Guess you lost your money," the woman said. "Hope the loss wasn't too big."

The fight was over? The fight was over. Jinsoul had lost her money. Yves had won. Yves had won, just like she had predicted. She was looking at Jinsoul, smile back on her lips, the annoying one she had said wasn't for self-pity. Beads of sweat rolled down her forehead.

The whole thing needed another two seconds to really trickle in Jinsoul's mind. Yves had won with a fake-casual stance, and because she won, they'd actually meet up in the ladies room, doing--

 _I like you._ Just the memory of that made Jinsoul queasy. There was no way. There was just no fucking way. Even if there was, even if-- even if the girl was into other girls -- she wouldn't be liking Jinsoul out of all people. There was just no way. Her entire class told her so, so it must be true. Yves _had_ always reminded her of her bullies, pretty but with evil on her face.

It had to be a lie. There was really no other way. Yves thought that Jinsoul was _hot_? It had to be a lie.  They were the fun things that straight girls said but didn't mean, because if you meant it, you were immediately worse.

Of course. Now it all made sense. Yves had lied about this, and she had lied about this being an easy fight and she wouldn't show up in two weeks at the ladies' room either. Because the truth was, there was nothing swan-like about this girl, nothing graceful, nothing beautiful. But Jinsoul would show her. She'd show her the beauty of purple bruises. Yves was about to see stars dancing, and not of the romantic kind.

Jinsoul stood there, shivering in anger. Dimly she recognized that people were leaving one by one, someone even staring at her almost all the time as they did so, but she couldn't move. And it's not like it didn't matter if people went or not. Her anger didn't. Her want to beat up Yves didn't.

"Feels like shit, doesn't it," Vivi's voice said next to her. "Seeing her throw punches and look all cool about it."

Jinsoul grit her teeth.

"Because she can afford it," Vivi continued, all calm, "and you can't, and that's what's really pissing you off. Right? That's it."

Jinsoul clenched her fist, forced herself to breathe through her nose.

"So you were saying about the Black Swan what, again?" Vivi asked.

What was she saying? Why was she saying anything anyway? She should be doing things already.

Jinsoul grit out, "Train me."

"Oh?" Vivi said. "What was that? The high and mighty Barbie wants to be trained by me?"

She didn't repeat herself.

"So we can finally start with the actual stuff? Is that what you're telling me?"

"You fucking heard me," Jinsoul said.

Vivi chuckled. "I sure did. But don't come crying when you can't take it in anymore."

Crying. Crying was shit weak people like her used to do.

"Give me your worst."

Vivi huffed. "Then welcome to camp. Prepare to live and die over and over."

 

"Let me tell you a story," Vivi said. That was on Monday.  

On Monday she demanded that Jinsoul moved to her and be prepared to skip classes for twelve weeks. Jinsoul felt the back part of her brain twinge at that, and it was probably something important that made her feel this way. Probably. It was hard to think of what it was when you had to run until your legs didn't feel like legs anymore.

 _You finally showed up,_ Yves said. _I kinda thought you’d chicken out of it._

_Fuck you._

Yves always laughed in her mind.

"It's a good one. Listen up well," Vivi said in her car where she didn't have to run, where all she did was sit and watch with a smile and eyes so watchful Jinsoul felt back at school. In this school every class was P.E and there were no other girls around. It was Vivi at all times. Vivi sitting and smiling, Vivi standing with mitts held up that Jinsoul could hit, Vivi with her stupid fucking story every evening. Left, right, jabs, climaxes, as if it mattered. Each hit she saw it so clearly: the visual of Yves' lip cut open, bruised skin, and eyes swollen shut. It was beautiful. More than that, it was just perfect. Realer than real in all the ways Yves would never be.

_You’re too tight. Loosen up, baby. Just like that. Yes._

"So there was this girl called Viian," Vivi said, in one of those cruel five-minute breaks that she allowed Jinsoul to drink water. Jinsoul was just busy chugging down water down her burning throat. "And Viian liked this guy, he was hot and cute and everything else, you get it, the prince you'd meet in fairytales. But the guy didn't like weak bitches."

Dimly Jinsoul heard something vibrate on her bag. She glanced at it, and right in that moment Vivi hit her on her head. The rest of the afternoon the right side of her head throbbed.

"That's when Viian decided she didn't like weak bitches either," Vivi continued.

Once they were done sparring, she had to skip rope for an hour, Vivi motioning her to go faster and faster. At this point, the second Jinsoul got to think of anything, the rope got between her legs and she had to start all over. Vivi wanted one clean hundred. Jinsoul managed it on her fifth try.

"So what Viian did was, she went to a boxing club to learn this shit properly." Vivi positioned herself on the punching bags so she lied on it, straight from a magazine photoshoot, Sports Illustrated or whatever they were called. Jinsoul had to beat on what Vivi called a heavy bag. Her knuckles felt like exploding into smithereens. What day it was, she couldn't say either at this point. Maybe it was Tuesday, or Sunday, or Monday. "She had a coach, tall, gorgeous, hot. So hot that Viian forgot about her boy right away."

"Are you trying to," Jinsoul heaved out in the evening when they were at Vivi’s place, the entire thing getting too familiar too fast. "Tell me something with that?"

"I would never," Vivi said. "Whoever you're into, that's not for me to judge."

Jinsoul wished she did. Yves was someone to judge. Her liking Yves was someone to judge. Her at night, when Vivi was out, and it was just her mind and her hands, and Yves between her legs in her mind's imagination, that was something to judge. It had to be.

 _Is this your first time?_ she had asked. Then giggled, as if that was something cute.

Thursdays were rest days. So were Sundays. Jinsoul's phone flashed to missed calls and a bunch of messages that she had to respond to. She shut her phone off and tossed it somewhere she wouldn't have to see. Art student Jinsoul would answer them when she had the time.

"Viian worked really hard," Vivi said. At this point it sounded like a really idiotic parable. "To get to her level, because who needed a man when you had a woman like this in front of you."

Whenever Jinsoul wanted to start or finish a thought, Vivi would start yelling, "Harder!" or take Jinsoul off balance by attacking her. Something about how Yves would do the same. But Jinsoul had seen Yves. Last thing she do was do this seriously.

The last thing Yves would do was do Jinsoul seriously. (But it is what she had done. _You’re cute,_ she had said. _Cute and hot. It’s unfair._ )

Jinsoul rubbed her clit as if it was something to beat. Orgasming felt too tight, not freeing. It was Yves' fault. It was thanks to Yves that Jinsoul's punches actually were worth a damn.

"Hope you're not waiting for a moral of this story," Vivi said. "'cause in the end the girl got a knee injury and then decided, nope, pro boxing wasn't her thing. The boy she had started boxing for? He’d found a new girl to lust over too, some kinda girl that Viian could beat one-on-one no problem. Viian was left just like that."

"Sounds like you think I'm you," Jinsoul said. Whether or not it was a rest day didn't really matter anymore. Her phone had more messages than her attention span was long.

"Viian isn't me," Vivi said, looking through her cupboards to find something to drink. "I'm just a girl from Hong Kong that is looking for a job."

"Yeah and I'm someone that wants to beat up people for fun."

Vivi smirked. "You're really getting the hang out of this self-awareness thing, girl."

Yves would always smile at her in her mind when she masturbated. Yves would always frown at Jinsoul in her mind when she sparred. She always had a bruise on her cheek at this point, regardless of day or night. Would tell her, _you're such a good girl_ , and without fail it would get to Jinsoul. The real Yves had no bruises, but she’d said that all the same.

_I can't fucking stand you._

_Call me Sooyoung,_ she had said. Jinsoul still called her Yves. _But you know, if you ever wanna fight… mm, you know… differently… I’m up for that._

_Fuck you too._

Yves still laughed in her mind.

"You're a lot more lean now," Vivi said. Who knew how long it had been since they had trained together.

"Couldn't tell the difference," Jinsoul said. "I don't wanna do a before-after shit anyway."

Yves had laughed. _Oh, come on. Just once, call me Sooyoung. Maybe then I’ll come._

Jinsoul didn’t look like an art student anymore.

“You got a different look in your eyes now, too,” Vivi said. It sounded like some fake deep bullshit every coach would say.

Yves wasn't Yves in her mind. Maybe that was the real problem. That was what Jinsoul thought every afterglow after they had sex, every time she masturbated to that afterward. She’d fall asleep to that thought, to how blissful Sooyoung had looked afterward like they hadn’t just had sex in the closet. _I think I wanna go at it with you,_ Yves had said. _Just to challenge my mentality, you know._ When Jinsoul would challenge her own, well, it wasn’t up to her.

“I think you’re ready for her,” Vivi said. “Fighting her. You better pay me for this.”

What Yves was didn’t matter now, though. Energy filled her that made all the previous weeks worth it.

"Your story sucked, by the way," Jinsoul said.

"Yeah, well," Vivi said, "I'm not a fucking storyteller."

 

Yerim said, "we need to talk."

Yerim stood there right in front of Jinsoul's dorm room, hands on her hips, frown in the middle of her pretty and clean forehead. How long she's stood there, what she was doing here to begin with, Jinsoul didn't know. It seemed dumb to ask.

Jinsoul scratched her head. "That's my flat," she said.

"Yeah? So?"

Jinsoul could throw her to the ground pretty fast, with her posture all open. This was Yerim, her brain reminded her.

"I kinda wanna go inside."

"Where have you been?"

"With Vivi." Did Yerim even know Vivi? She lived in an entirely different world, after all. "Vivi is-"

"I know who Vivi is." Yerim did look red, kind of. "You look so thin! Did you-- did you even eat?"

"You're kinda yelling, you know." Jinsoul fished her keys from her pocket, throwing them idly in her hand. "People are gonna complain."

"And suddenly you care about other people?" Her face did look red now, kind of. "And suddenly you give a fuck?"

Jinsoul threw her keys to the air and right back to her palm. The jangle echoed throughout the hallway.

"I'm talking to you!" Yerim yelled. "Stop this!"

She wouldn't fight Yerim no matter how much she'd ask for it indirectly. She put a hand around the key ring and idly circled it around her hand. "Yerim-ah. I wanna go in."

"I won't let you."

Jinsoul rolled her shoulders. "I don't need your permission for that."

"Or else what." Yerim sized her up. "Are you going to fight me?"

"Not you."

"But if it wasn't me, you would? Is that it?" Yerim pretended to go into a ready stance. Or maybe it wasn't pretense and it was her genuine stance, it was hard to tell with her and her squeaky-clean world. "Then fight me! Jung Jinsoul, fight me!"

"I'm your unnie of four years."

"Then why don't you act like it!" Her eyes did shine with tears, kind of. "Then why do you dip wherever you want to and do whatever you want to and ignore my calls! Did you even see them? Do you even know how many times I called you, texted you? I thought you were--"

"I was at camp," Jinsoul said. The damp air of the hallways felt really annoying on her skin now. "I don't think I got bruises anywhere anymore."

"And you didn't tell me?" Yerim screamed. Tears ran down to her cheeks, and she didn't bother to wipe them. "Why didn't you tell me? Why do you never tell me anything? Is it because I'm too young? Do you think I won't get it? We're friends since, what--"

"Don't ask me." Yerim had been in her life at some point, just like that, smile bright and eyes big and all cute. Back then she'd soak up every word that Jinsoul would tell her as if it was the truth, and all Jinsoul remembered was that it took sometime to get used to that. But how long it had took her, when they'd met, she didn't know. Yerim was there. That was all that mattered.

"But I'm gonna!" Yerim hit her tiny fist on Jinsoul's chest, her hair tickling Jinsoul's nose. Jinsoul smelled the waft of vanilla. “I'm gonna! Fuck you, unnie! Why are you like this!"

Why was she like this? Because she was. Because this is what violence got you to. She just didn't want Yerim to worry. That was why she'd joined the club in the first place. She'd done this because Yerim had frowned. And here she was again, frowning. Was there just no pleasing to her, was that it?

But the way Yerim hit her and cried felt straight out of a shitty drama. Jinsoul didn't feel like she was a lead, and if she was, it was probably a pretty shitty series or movie.

She processed this for a moment, Yerim against her chest sobbing. Maybe that's what her life led up to. Shitty episodes of shitty series that people liked to watch.

Jinsoul sighed. "Come in, and I'll tell you."

Inside, Jinsoul brewed up tea to a Yerim that was still standing on the doorstep, unsure whether or not to come in, eyes all distrusting. Telling her meant telling about the things she thought Yerim shouldn't hear of, the things that were too dark for her bright world, things that would make her frown and scowl and maybe make her cry too.

"If you don't come in I'll tell the story to a wall," Jinsoul said and put the tea cup on her bed.

"What kind of story," Yerim said.

 _The story of my life._ Jinsoul looked at Yerim and hoped she got it. Something about friendship telepathy. But then, Yerim still wasn't ready to hear about it. Yerim wasn't...

"What kinda story," Yerim repeated.

Yerim had frowned even while Jinsoul hadn't told her the story. What did it matter.

"I met a girl," Jinsoul said. Yerim's eyes were red from crying before, snot threatening to come out. "She's... she brings the worst out of me."

Yerim's eyebrows shot up.

"And the best. I guess."

Telling her meant telling about everything, but just saying this much made Jinsoul feel tight. So much about joining the club to feel strong. She still didn't. None of this shit felt any easier.

"You wanna talk about it?" Yerim asked. Her tone sounded weird, but the content felt normal, at the very least.

No, she didn't want to talk about it. The less she thought about it all, the better. But that hadn't made her feel very strong. Jungkook would keysmash in laughter as reaction.

"Come sit down," Jinsoul said again. Yerim edged away from the door and walked slowly towards the bed.

"You're not messing around with me, are you?"

Turns out not doing something didn't immediately mean you got what you wanted.

"Sit down already," Jinsoul said, her throat knotting uncomfortably in advance. "I don't wanna do this."

"It's alright if you don't," Yerim said, "Really. I get it, you know."

"No you don't. So shut up already and listen."

Yerim stared, eyes big and red rimmed and lashes all dark from crying. Her pure world was about to get soiled, but what did it matter.

"I met this girl the first time I went to the club," Jinsoul started. She continued to talk about how she met Vivi not much after that, how Yves made her think of high school, and how in high school, she'd known that she was...

"You never told me that," Yerim murmured, close to crying again. Jinsoul's throat was burning.

A lesbian. That was that she was. And what she was made other girls uncomfortable, very much so.

"I'm--" Yerim held her hand, warm and adding oil to the fire.

"Don't," Jinsoul said. "Don't be sorry." She looked down, her eyes burning too.

By the time she finished, her voice was nothing more than a ragged whisper, ashes left from the fire. Yerim hugged her, sobbing softly against her chest, and in a way, it felt a little like a fire distinguished within her. There was a vast space within her lungs, and breathing in, it felt... it felt a little like being actually okay for once, headaches and all.

 

 _exams are soon_ , Jungkook sent her. _you not gonna show up??? the teacher's asking_

Jinsoul leaned back from where she sat in her bed and furrowed her eyebrows. Right. Art classes.

 _can i learn from your stuff_ , she sent. The answer came straight away - a flurry of keysmashes and laugh-cry emojis.

Jinsoul bit her lip. A sensible part of her wanted her to drop out, try again next year. But Yerim. And Yves, too, would just end up laughing at Jinsoul if she ended dropping out.

 _well let's cram this shit_ she sent.

 _together? lmfao_ came the reply.

Telling Yerim about it didn't mean that Yves was suddenly less than what she was in Jinsoul's mind.

_yeah. together._

It didn't matter, the sensible part of her said.

Jinsoul just didn't want to see Yves smile. It made her so much hotter.

 

Vivi arranged their fight for a Friday, because "there's just nothing better than coming home from work and watching two girls beat the fuck out of one another." Whatever that meant, Jinsoul didn't want to know, and it's not like she could - Vivi continued with the training, and trying to pass at least one exam meant that her weakest muscle, the brain, was constantly exhausted.

"Do you even recognize how misogynistic that sounds?"

Of course, one way or another, Yves - Sooyoung - had made her way back to the little flat again. When she looked at Jinsoul, there was an expectant look, no longer that joke or evil in her eyes. "Right, Barb?" she asked now. "You wouldn't want our fight to be like this."

"Hmmm," she grunted and looked back at her book. Third time’s the charm in getting that line in her brain.

"Please don't stress my girl's single braincell," Vivi said. "And her name isn't Barb."

"What is it, then?"

Jinsoul made another grunt.

"See, I'm right," Vivi said, all smug.

“No, her name.”

Vivi didn’t answer.

"And besides, brainless girls turn me on.” Yves plopped next to her. Her head should be touching Jinsoul's shoulder. Her hand should be holding Jinsoul's. "I mean, I also was kind of in love with you before."

Vivi laughed one of her offended laughs again. "You’re a fucking liar!"

The next sentence on the book made no fucking sense in Jinsoul's mind.

Yves laughed. "That very hard?"

Was it? It probably wasn't. Reading the next sentence again made her forget about the first one. Learning this was useless. She should've dropped out. Jinsoul made a grunt.

Yves laughed again. "You better not grunt like this elsewhere when I'm around. Makes me think you really don't want it."

 _I want to move in with you to a flat like this. In a ring like this, I want to_ \-- Jinsoul stopped herself before she could continue the train of thought. It was the same old melody that was all too easy to hum along to.

"Never," Jinsoul said.

Yves breathed against her neck, and whether it was a laugh or an invitation Jinsoul bet that neither of them could tell. "I want this to be over, you know."

She gave up reading the sentence with the third time and shut the book close. Yet looking at Yves meant agreeing to something she didn't want to. She hummed an agreement.

"We could fight, and... after that..." Yves' voice was so soft, as if she wasn't what she was.

"Yeah," Jinsoul said, a little louder than Yves. Her body flushed with warmth.

"Yeah?"

She wasn't about to repeat herself. Yves' hand was so close to her own, but traveling the distance between with her fingers felt long, fabric crease over fabric crease to conquer. Yves saw it and turned her hand so that Jinsoul had an easier time to touch it.

Jinsoul had never felt so whole before from touching someone's hand. Someone's fucking hand, out of all things. Someone's hand that was just as soft as hers and just as warm as hers. It didn't make any fucking sense, but here she was. Here they were.

"I think I'm--" Yves started.

"Keep the shit until later!" Vivi yelled. Yves flinched, retracted her hand, and here Jinsoul's hand was all on its own, the moment over. "You can have your loving moment after the fight! What the hell! Who heard of this nonsense, that opponents got this cozy before a match?"

"You just sound jealous," Yves said, louder and bolder this time.

"My judgements are _sound_ , Ha Sooyoung! And now fuck off! And you too!"

Yves huffed, but it was Jinsoul who got up first with her big book. "I'll see you," she said to Yves.

"See you."

Vivi was still yelling when Jinsoul closed the door out, and after a second of silence, so was Yves. Loud and angry and rough. Jinsoul smiled to herself. That wasn't supposed to feel comforting, either. But here they were.

 

The cold water particles that made up this ugly fog - or whatever the physical cause was behind this - stuck on Jinsoul's coat and skin, uncomfortable to breathe in and walk through. It was even more uncomfortable inside the boxing club, all the warm air hard to breathe and already too many people inside. Nobody turned to look at her as she walked past the crowd, probably because she wasn't Barbie yet, the underdog in the fight against Yves, the Black Swan.

Sooyoung was in the changing room, already in her boxing getup and taping her wrist. She glanced at Jinsoul when she walked in, but didn't say anything.

"You do that with everyone you fight?" Jinsoul asked.

"Yeah," Sooyoung answered. "Helps me get into the mindset."

"What mindset?"

She grinned. "Not the one I should be in right now."

Jinsoul rolled her eyes, but got rid of her jacket and her scarf. She heard Yves get up, tap on the floor idly, and walk around idly. She felt her muscles tense, one by one, as she changed into her gym clothes, ones that still had the distinct smell of packaged mall product.

"I was serious before," Yves said. "About dating you. If you want to."

Jinsoul hummed.

"But--"

That got her to turn around. Yves didn't look at her, of course she didn't, instead staring at a point in the wall as if that was Jinsoul. Jinsoul had never wanted to beat her up this badly. _Look at me_ , she wanted to say. _Make it real_ , she wanted to yell.

"But I'm also serious about this." Yves glanced at Jinsoul for a moment, too fast to tell whether she was happy or challenging or frustrated or sad. Then it was back at the wall. "That's just who I am. I don't wanna do it half-assed."

 _Not anymore_ , she could hear.

"I'm flattered."

Yves grinned. That did look dangerous. "As you should be."

And with that, she opened the door to the thunderous screams of the watchers. Jinsoul sighed and pulled her hair together to a ponytail, so strong that she felt her temples strain a little.

This was it. This was what she'd waited for all this time, from the moment that they'd met. And yet--

 _I think I like you_ , it rang in her mind all hollow.

Jinsoul pulled a little harder on her ponytail to center herself and stepped outside as well. Almost straight away, girls started to yell and cheer, chanting Barbie over and over. _Who is this Barbie_ , Jinsoul wanted to ask. This whole alternate-name thing made no sense. There was no myth to her. Her hand itched to scratch her head, but instead she went to the nape of her neck, small and comfortable.

Yves was waiting for her on the ring, a gleam in her eyes but no smile.

Jinsoul had wanted to do this for so long, that now... now...

"Not excited to do this?" Yves asked.

In the audience she saw Kim Lip's now blond hair, and next to her was Yerim, so different from everyone else in the way she cheered and waved at Jinsoul. _You got this!_ she heard her say, and it made Jinsoul smile a little.

"I see how it is," Yves continued unprompted. "You just wanna act like you're cool."

Jinsoul got into her ready position, a proper one. She looked at Yves with a level gaze. "Don't need to act a certain way."

"You're right," she said. "You're already plenty uncool."

She wanted to hold Yves' hand, which was curled up a fist right now, and tell her things that rivalled a romantic movie of the shittiest kind. She wanted to hold Yves in her arms, feel her warmth, feel her white passion on herself. She had wanted to beat Yves up, but that felt like a year ago. Everything felt so far to her right now.

Tiffany was saying something about the fight of David and Goliath, the fight of the year, far more fun than the Battle between the swans, which had featured a battered one anyway, and even though she was just right next to Jinsoul, her voice floated as if underwater. There was Yves in front of her and there wasn't.

_You ready?_

No. No she wasn't.

But Yves was, and Yves got into a ready stance so casual that it felt like an insult, and  
smiled with the clear intent to piss Jinsoul off.

Her mind screamed. Screamed, _this girl lied to you!_ Demanded her full attention to here and now. The world burst into sharp vision, the world became her ring.

And Jinsoul still felt miles away from it.

The gong hit to the first round.

Jinsoul's fists stretched forward to the jab, elbows bowed at all times, knuckles receiving the impact through the mitts. They were too strong. Vivi would hate it. She'd told her that being angry made it worse. Jinsoul wasn't angry. Her punches just looked like it, as if she was fighting a man several times bigger and stronger than her. She hit at Yves as if she was on the street, fighting boys. She really wasn’t angry, though. It was just like the times she'd been beaten up in the schoolyard: she wasn't anything at all.

Yves evaded them at the start, just like she'd evaded holding her hand. She tried to land a jab herself - _I like it. I like you_ -, but Jinsoul's muscle had all the defenses memorized. It didn't matter. She didn't matter. Yves didn’t matter. Yves wasn't Yves anymore. She had no face, only a series of pink mitts and things that were supposed to hurt. They didn't.

Jinsoul wanted to hold Yves right now, and when she held Yves, she wanted to beat her. It was funny in a twisted way, like a stupid comedy flick.

Back then she and the boys would hang and beat the fuck out of each other and they’d lie on the ground and laugh until one of them sputtered blood. The nurse stopped asking them by the third time they showed up together.

She heard the bell ring to the end of the first round. Yves stopped, something glowing in her eyes, smile big. Jinsoul hit her right in her nose. Yves staggered back, and Tiffany yelled something - or at least it looked like it - but Jinsoul took a step forward and hit her, as hard as she could. Her nose felt so soft and fragile. Red dripped onto Yves’ pretty big lips.

_I was serious about dating you._

_But I’m also serious about this._

Somewhere far off, Jinsoul can hear Yerim yell, _Jinsoul unnie!_

Cue the laugh track.

 

Where Yves lay at was a minute away from campus, not that bad, Vivi had said, _but only visit her after a day, just to make sure_ . Jungkook had seen her, cocked an eyebrow with a smile in his eyes that was far too amused, but hadn't done much as she went farther away from the campus. She hadn't been to this one before, but as she stepped inside, she was so overcome with the feeling of _hospital_ that it didn't seem to matter all that much anyway. And there was nothing to make _sure_ of, anyway. Nothing that Jinsoul could make sure of, anyway.

 _Sooyoung? Sooyoung what_ , the nurse asked. Jinsoul had to rack her mind. She'd heard her full name once, from Vivi.

"She knows me, you know?" Jinsoul asked, tapping impatiently on the desk. This didn't make her feel strong either. Maybe she'd chase free air for her lungs forever.

"That isn't helping me, miss," the clerk said, with the patience of someone that was truly done with all of this shit. "Do you have a last name? When was she admitted?"

Something Sooyoung, fuck off.

"Two days ago," Jinsoul said.

"Two days ago." She typed so slowly that it felt a little like revenge. "And what was her name again?"

"Sooyoung."

"Last name, miss."

Jinsoul slammed her fist on the table. "It could be anything," she said, voice still level. "Choi. Lee. Park. Kim. Ha. Choose one."

"Ha Sooyoung, yes." Another agonizingly slow click. "That would be room two-hundred--"

Jinsoul sprinted upward. Why she was hurrying so much, she couldn’t tell. Maybe she _did_ want to make sure, even if she couldn't. Was her face plastered with bandaids? Did she smile? Was her smile gone? Would she hurl something at Jinsoul? Her life resembled a shitty movie anyway. Yves might as well hurl the entire door to her face. Jinsoul would deserve it. Taking the stairs up two at a time prevented her from thinking too hard, from remembering something she didn't want to.

Two-hundred, as it turned out, was a floor, and as it turned out, Yves wasn't on a floor more than she was behind one of numerous hospital doors. Every one of them stank, every one of them looked identical to one another, full of people about to be dead. Yves? Yves wouldn't die, would she? A hit like that wouldn't kill you.

"Barb?" she heard float from somewhere, Jinsoul's legs too fast to stop. She turned back, but there was no one.

"Yves," she said, her voice echoing from the yellowed walls. She heard someone step closer to her, and just as she wanted to turn around someone's soft hands held her shoulders.

"Don't turn," Yves said from behind her. "I look ugly as fuck."

"You always do," Jinsoul said.

"I don't wanna see your face anymore than I did earlier from when you passed," Yves said. "There. Happy now?"

Jinsoul felt herself tense up, memories from the start of the fight flashing back. "Do you always lie like that?"

Yves huffed. It sounded a lot like a snicker. "Just when it's with you. But it's kinda fun to see you like that."

 _Fuck you._ Jinsoul swallowed it down. "How's your nose?"

"Good. I guess. I got some sutures on my face."

"You can star in a movie now."

"A--" Yves huffed again. "Only when I'm ugly?"

"Because of it."

Other words burned in her throat now.

"Where are your parents?"

"In my room. I guess you must've went past it, 'cause it's like--"

"Your fees. Your parents pay for them?”

Whatever Yves wanted to say was caught in her throat. "What?"

"Your hospital fees. Are they a lot?"

A moment of silence. "You can't be serious."

"I am."

"You-" Yves' hands gripped on Jinsoul's shoulders. "You know what, I can't stand you. I just-- maybe it wasn't a good idea that you came. You just... you just hit me in a fucking break, like you wanted to hurt me. A fucking _sucker punch._ What the fuck? I thought we were... I thought we were..."

_I thought we were made for one another, too. I still do. I still want us to._

"I think you should go," Yves said. "I'll contact you. I'll find a way how."

Jinsoul nodded, and Yves let her go. Where Yves had touched her was burning and stinging all at once.

"Don't turn around just yet."

Jinsoul heard Yves receding steps, one echoing sound at a time. I'm sorry, her throat wanted to bring out. It's all my fault.

"Sooyoung-ah," Jinsoul said instead.

The steps stopped.

"My name is Jinsoul," she introduced herself, "so don't go around calling me Barbie ever again."

Yves didn't react to it for a second. Then, she laughed out so loud that the sound echoed off the entire hallway. The lights above Jinsoul brightened for a flicker of a second.

"Look at you," Yves said. Jinsoul still didn't turn around. "What's a shit girl like you saying decent things?"

Jinsoul snickered. "Fine. Pretend I never--"

But then the sound of the steps were completely gone. She stopped halfway through the sentence, turned around to an empty hallway, and made her way back to campus.


End file.
